The MTA announced that the B61 will soon be equipped with BusTime — a system that provides real-time bus arrival and location information.
In December, Councilman Brad Lander, Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez and Councilwoman Sara González released a study named “Next Bus Please: Improving the B61 Bus,” .
The BusTime improvements, which will be installed no later than this June, uses GPS devices on buses, which riders can access from their cell phones or computers, to find out where the next bus on the route actually is.
The MTA first implemented this system in 2011 on the B63 bus, which runs along Fifth and Atlantic Avenues in Brooklyn, as well as lines in Staten Island.
Other scheduled improvements to the B61, via the MTA, are:
- More frequent buses during the evening rush hour, increasing the average headway from ten to nine minutes.
- More reliable service at all hours, such as an increase in the amount of time the bus has to make the run and to recover at the end of the route, and a change in the location of the bus driver shift change from the middle of the line to the end of the line.
“Installing BusTime is a great step forward for B61 bus riders, who have been frustrated for years with infrequent and unreliable bus service,” said Council Member Brad Lander. “The MTA has worked with us to make improvements to the line and I look forward to taking further steps to making the B61 a great bus for these neighborhoods.”
In December, it was also announced that along the B61's route.
